On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 13:10:05 -0500, "rick etter"
> wrote:

>yep, that's all you have....


ARE HUMANS ENDANGERED IF CATTLE DINE ON CHICKEN MANURE?
August 23, 1997 Web posted at: 1:52 p.m. EDT (1752 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As federal food safety inspectors search for the
source of E. coli bacteria that contaminated ground beef from a
Nebraska processing plant, a serious new threat to the U.S. beef
supply is being overlooked, according to an upcoming article in U.S.
News and World Report.

Increasingly, American cattle farmers feed their herds chicken manure,
which health officials warn could contain dangerous bacteria that ends
up in ground meat eaten by humans, the magazine reports in its
September 1 issue. The waste that is mixed with livestock feed is a
less expensive alternative to using grains and hay.

The practice is increasingly being used by cattle farmers in regions
where there are large poultry operations -- and thus a ready supply of
cheap manure -- such as California, the South and the mid-Atlantic
states.

The U.S. News article cites as an example Dardanelle, Arkansas, farmer
Lamar Carter, who recently bought 745 tons of manure from local
chicken houses to feed his 800 head of cattle.

"My cows are as fat as butterballs," Carter said. "If I didn't have
chicken litter, I'd have to sell half my herd. Other feed's too
expensive."

HEATING MANURE TO 160 DEGREES KILLS BACTERIA

Chicken manure often contains campylobacteria and salmonella bacteria,
which can make humans sick. Intestinal parasites, veterinary drug
residues and heavy toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and
mercury are also often present in the waste, the article says.

The article points to a scientific study, soon to be published in the
journal Preventive Medicine, that warns about the potential dangers of
recycling chicken waste by feeding it to cattle.

"Feeding manure that has not been properly processed is supercharging
the cattle feces with pathogens likely to cause disease in consumers,"
Dr. Neal Barnard, author of the study, warns in the U.S. News article.

While it may sound distasteful, this can be safe if the manure is
heated to 160 degrees to kill the bacteria. But, the study says many
farmers don't take that precaution.

There are no accurate statistics on how common the practice of feeding
chicken manure to cattle is, the magazine report says, but with a
recent ban on the use of slaughterhouse byproducts -- imposed because
of the "mad cow" disease scare -- there is a shortage of cattle feed
filler.

Until the ban, about 75 percent of the 90 million cattle in the United
States were fed slaughterhouse wastes that included blood, bones and
viscera.

Millions of euthanized cats and dogs, collected from veterinarians and
animal shelters, have long been rendered into livestock feed each
year, the article says.

© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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